Is There a Moral to Bluebeard?

We all seem to think that fairy tales should have a moral lesson to be learned, or at least a warning about the consequences of improper human behavior. Is there any lesson to be learned in the tale of Bluebeard? It is a rather grotesque tale, with its mutilated dead bodies of Bluebeard's former wives. It is also a rather scary tale, since the new wife realizes that she will be his next victim as soon as he learns that she has looked into the secret room. We seemed to agree in class that surely it is not a tale suitable to tell to children. So then is the lesson aimed at women? Some say that it teaches women to be obedient. The husband is head of the household and must be respected and obeyed. The wife in the story was disobedient and thus, she had to be killed. But it makes one wonder what would have happened if she had been obedient. Perhaps he would never have killed her and he would have treated her with love and kindness for the rest of her life. But would you want to be in ignorance about a husband who murdered his previous wives and stashed their dead bodies in a little room in your house? Wouldn't it start to stink? I've had a small mouse die in our house before, and the way we found out about it was the unbearably bad smell. Women have a very keen sense of smell--much better than a man's--so I'm betting that the woman would have discovered the problem eventually. But I digress from the real discussion! Anyway, even if she had been obedient, I doubt such an evil murderer would have made a good and loving husband. Something bad would happen to her at some point in the marriage. If he got mad for any reason he might just slice her up!
Another possible lesson to be learned from Bluebeard is not to give in to your curiosity. Some critics think that the woman was overly curious and that made her a bad person. I think that most humans have a curious nature. My mom used to tell us that many car accidents are caused by people trying to look at an accident on the other side of the road, because we are all so curious and want to know what happened. We especially want to know what is going on if something is made out to be a secret. The Bluebeard character forbade her to go look in the little room, but gave her the key. Just because she was curious, like most people would be, she wasn't a bad person and she certainly did not deserve to die for her curiosity. Even if the room had been empty, I still would not think she was a bad or evil person--just a curious one.
So if neither of those "lessons" really make sense, what could be the lesson of this tale? When you consider the whole entire story and how it ended, the real moral could be the following one, aimed directly at men: Don't try to murder your wife, no matter how disobedient she is, because she may find a way to murder you!